Apr 22 07:03 AM US/Eastern
TOKYO, April 22 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The government said Thursday it has appealed a district court ruling ordering the state to disclose documents showing the existence of a secret financial pact reached by Japan and the United States over the 1972 reversion of Okinawa to Japan from U.S. control.
Both the foreign and finance ministries said they appealed the ruling because they could not find the documents despite their investigation, while some plaintiffs in the lawsuit expressed disappointment over the move.
The latest development came after Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada indicated earlier that the government may consider appealing the court ruling which was issued at the Tokyo District Court on April 9.
The documents in question, compiled between 1969 and 1971, include one indicating Japan secretly shouldered $4 million in costs that the United States was supposed to pay to restore farmland in Okinawa that had been used by U.S. forces.
"(The Tokyo District Court ruling) was handed down without taking into account the outcome of the ministry's thorough investigation. We also cannot make a decision to disclose a document which the Foreign Ministry does not have. So we decided to appeal," the ministry said in its press release.
The ministry was referring to a recent investigation conducted by a panel of experts on four so-called Japan-U.S. secret pacts, including the cost-burden agreement for the Okinawa reversion.
The existence of the four secret pacts had already been exposed through declassified U.S. documents and testimonies of people involved. But the Japanese government long denied the existence of any such pacts, before the change of government last year led to an investigation of the matter.
As for the secret cost-burden agreement, the panel of experts under the foreign ministry as well as the finance ministry acknowledged that a secret pact "in a broad sense" existed, so the existence of the pact itself is unlikely to become a contentious issue.
Okada has been working hard to delve into the secret pact issue since becoming the foreign minister last fall, but some say that appealing the court ruling may go against his stance to show greater transparency in foreign policy issues.
Meanwhile, Keiichi Katsura, who leads the group of 25 plaintiffs, said, "Rather than appealing, the state should make efforts to enhance its information disclosure system."
"The state has to give a rational explanation in an appeals trial on why the documents do not exist," Katsura added.
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